Arrest Plan Rejected for Riverbed Dwellers : Ventura: Officials opt for efforts to discourage panhandling in downtown while seeking alternative housing for roughly 200 homeless.

A proposal to arrest squatters living in the Ventura River bottom has sputtered before the Ventura City Council, with council members opting instead for a plan to discourage transients from loitering downtown.

“We certainly all support helping the homeless and helping the merchants,” Councilman Gary Tuttle said during the council debate Monday night. “Where we begin to start having (disagreement) is with the idea of arresting homeless violators and breaking up encampments. I think that could get ugly.”

In the end, the council voted unanimously for a plan that calls for tougher panhandling ordinances, increased police foot patrols downtown through Christmas and a continuing search for alternative housing for the approximately 200 river-bottom dwellers.

The action was a step to assuage downtown business owners, who complain that transients litter and disturb their customers. The merchants say they think many of the problem panhandlers walk up from their encampments on the river bottom.

“Our staff is beginning to face questions from tour operators,” said Bill Clawson, director of Ventura’s visitors bureau. “Some of our hotels are beginning to lose business because the atmosphere outside the hotel is not as friendly as the atmosphere inside the hotel.”

Brian Brennan, general manager of the Chart House restaurant, said that while he did not want the council to kick the homeless out of the river bottom if they had nowhere to go, he thought the city needed to take some action.

“Around my restaurant, I have three homeless encampments,” he said, adding that the transients there have begun to pester restaurant-goers, as well as set off his security alarm late at night by rattling doors and windows.

“My employees and my customers are starting to get gravely concerned,” he said.

The council also heard from social service providers and river-bottom dwellers, all of whom urged the council to postpone clearing the area until suitable housing could be found elsewhere.

“It seems strange to me that a report from the housing committee only reduces housing for some people in Ventura,” said Clyde Reynolds, director of the Turning Point Foundation, which provides services to mentally ill homeless. “I don’t accept the idea that there are not resources to viably address this problem.”

*

Ashley Thompson, who also lives at the river bottom, implored council members to reject the police plan before them.

“On behalf of the people of the river bottom, I ask that you do not remove us from our homes,” she said. “Our homes are to us as your homes are to you.”

The council’s housing committee--composed of council members Rosa Lee Measures, Jack Tingstrom and Jim Monahan--presented the original enforcement proposal after months of study sessions and community meetings on the issue.

The proposal’s final draft, as prepared by Ventura Police Capt. Randy Adams, had three phases.

In the first phase, the police and social service providers would have warned the river-bottom squatters that they must move, while providing them with a list of shelters that might have room for them.

During the second phase, the police would have photographed, fingerprinted and written citations on those homeless people who refused to leave the river bottom.

In the third phase, police officers would have arrested any homeless person who still lived on the river banks and destroyed the encampments there.

*

The plan, at a total price tag of up to $200,000 for the first year, also included finding money for a downtown police storefront and for increased police foot patrols downtown.

At first, the housing committee worked with homeless advocates and the police on a plan for a homeless campground away from the river bottom, which would have given the transients a roof over their heads and access to crucial social services.

But this fall, committee members decided that Ventura could not afford to pay for a campground. Tingstrom proposed drawing up a list of the county’s available shelters in the hopes that together they would provide enough space to house all the river squatters.

City Atty. Pete Bulens had warned committee members that the city could be setting itself up for a lawsuit if it did not provide adequate housing for the squatters once it kicked them out of the river bottom.

River-bottom dwellers who attended Monday night’s council meeting said they were appalled that the city would consider forcing them from their homes while leaving them few housing alternatives.

Jeff Sanders, who has lived on the river banks for the past 10 months, told the council that he once had a job and a family but lost them to alcoholism. He said he is trying to turn his life around.

“We have the same wants and needs as everyone else,” he said.